I cannot believe it!!! I just went outside and saw a Red Admiral resting on a banana leaf. I don't have any nettle, tried to get some false nettle or real nettle and couldn't. (Sob).
Red Admiral Spotting
Just found stinging nettle seeds on-line and have ordered some.Anyone want some when they arrive?
I had a sulphur yesterday and saw a Monarch flying around today. I have one milkweed that has regrown about a foot. Will watch to see if it laid eggs. If so i will bring them in to the milkweed I have in the Floridaroom
I can't seem to grow nettle. I have never researched it really to see if I'm doing something wrong but a friend in OH has tried to send me pieces several times and it always dies. (I'm not sure if I want any tho) Give us a report on it. Here's some info I found on it:
"Stinging nettle should be planted in it's own spot away from the main garden and not allowed to go to seed or it will spread . It also spreads by runners like mint. It is worth growing however because it has tremendous soil building and health benifits . It is one of the Biodynamic herbs . It is great to feed to animals and humans as a supplement . Makes a great tea and cooking herb. We feed it to baby chicks as soon as they are hatched . We also made an herbal fertilizer with it."
Perhaps your Red Admiral was looking for rotten bananas? They are usually the first ones that show up to my butterfly bait stations. You can always keep them coming to your yard by putting out butterfly brew or fruit.
Pellitory is in the urtaceae family...does pellitory sting as well?
We have gobs of stinging nettle (what the locals call hortiguilla) that grows wild - don't go walking around the yard with sandals!!! That stuff smarts!!!
~ Cat
This message was edited Jan 14, 2007 5:48 PM
I'm a little leary about anything with the name "stinging" in it. Sounds like this plant has to be really kept in a place away from traffic or from spreading. Is it worth possibly more work and effort to grow it? That would be the question that I would be asking before adopting such a plant in my yard.
Pellitory, on the other hand, to my knowledge ..... is NOT hazardous to brush up against or step on. (Maybe I'm wrong.) Didn't we have this conversation before about Pellitory? Seems I remember Karen or someone asking about it and I thought I had it growing as a wild weed in my yard. (Though I've never, ever seen any Red Admiral butterflies in my yard or anywhere locally for that matter.) Maybe I don't have pellitory in my yard, but the photo I saw of it online sure looked like it compared to the weeds I get in my yard.
We need to research this further. I would love to attract Red Admirals to my yard if they are known to live in my area.
I think what you had in your yard was Frogfruit. It is a groundcover with little white flowers that bees and little Hairstreaks love.
Yeah, the stinging part is not very inviting. I like more user-friendly plants! lol
Paige - Can you find a website link with a photo of pellitory? I can't find one with a good photo. I want to see it again to check if that is what I have. I don't have frogfruit here. I wish I did.
This one site I found with pellitory (weed) and it looks like what I get in my garden that I pull out all the time. It grows rampant here.
http://www.sutherland.nsw.gov.au/ssc/rwpattach.nsf/viewasattachmentPersonal/WeedFact_PellitoryWeed_FINAL.pdf/$file/WeedFact_PellitoryWeed_FINAL.pdf
If I can remember, I will post a photo of some in my yard tomorrow when it is daylight. Too dark tonight to go scouting for it! LOL!
This message was edited Jan 14, 2007 8:55 PM
Becky, I don't even know what pellitory is..? I'll look around tho. I'm too tired to search thru my threads but I swear we talked about whatever is growing in your yard before, and you thought it might be the Frogfruit. Maybe you discovered it wasn't tho. I remember that I was going to send you a piece of mine but didn't because you had it. I know I didn't just imagine all that! LOL!
If you really don't have Frogfruit then I will root you a piece when it comes back this spring. I'm thinking this picture had something to do with the conversation. (Ok, I'm going to have to search tomorrow because it will drive me nuts)
Paige - You are correct about us having this discussion before and I DO have frogfruit in my yard. And yes, I remember that's why I thought I had a lot of hairstreaks in my yard because the frogfruit is an invasive weed in my yard. One man's weed another man's host plant. LOL (I was thinking frogfruit was something else until you posted your photo.)
I think that the Parietaria floridana - Florida Pellitory issue was brought up by tropicalkaren or someone else in Florida. Because I vaguely remember a short discussion about it on an older thread and it is also considered a weed in Florida. She was looking for host plants to attract the Red Admirals and we talked about the pellitory. I am going to take a photo of what I think is Pellitory in my yard. This is a very delicate plant. When I weed them from my garden it wilts very quickly. It grows underneath all my garden plants and likes shady areas. I remember Karen or whoever had wanted me to send her some. At the time I had already weeded my garden and didn't have any. But I don't think it would transplant well because any disturbance around it seems to kill it. I wouldn't even know where to look for seeds on it. It's a rapid spreader. But I'm not against trying to figure out how to harvest this plant if it does attract Red Admirals. Apparently it is a Florida native plant. And it doesn't have any stinging parts on it, quite the contrary.
This message was edited Jan 15, 2007 9:03 AM
Here's another photo of it further away. It is quick spreading ground cover and can get quite thick. It might grow well in a pot with other plants, but not something that I would want growing on the ground in your gardens because it spreads rather rapidly. I have never seen any Red Admirals in my yard. Maybe they aren't this far east in Florida. I don't know.
I found a website that has a close up photo of this plant:
http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/image.asp?imageID=9059
And here is the full website on Pellitory:
http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/images.asp?plantID=2328#
I am going to plant the nettle seeds in a large pot and locate it at the back of my garden. I don't think it transplants easily because i have twice tried to do this with nettle in my yard.